“Good fight” is something that two competitors can say to each other, winner to loser and vice versa, after a boxing match or something similar. It is also part of the phrase found in the Bible, “fight the good fight.” David Hayward’s cartoon above, and his post related to it, helpfully ask whether one can do the latter without the former. Can one ever say that one is “fighting the good fight” and yet doing so in an unsportsmanlike manner?
Most of us are engaged in debates over ideas. Ideas are important, and can affect how we actually live. But if in the process of engaging in a battle of ideologies, we cease to value other human beings, then most of us would acknowledge that we’ve actually lost the war, however we may fare in that particular battle.
One of the things I appreciate about my church, Crooked Creek Baptist Church, is that there are so many people there who get this point. We disagree about major things and not just minor ones. But we genuinely value and appreciate one another, and the learning opportunity presented by our interaction.